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London schools use 6000 lemons in Citrus Saturday extravaganza as initiative goes global

6 July 2013

Schools from in and around London are using over 6000
lemons in a day of frenzied lemonade selling that would rival The Apprentice.

Citrus
Saturday – an initiative set up by UCL to show young people what it’s like being
an entrepreneur – will see eager teens from 22 schools and youth groups across
London, including South Camden Community School, the William Ellis School, the
Capital City Academy and Regent High School set up 17 lemonade stands across London,
from Euston to South Bank Food Market.

The stands across London have been generously provided by partners
including Camden Council, the People’s Supermarket, Euston and Paddington
Stations, and Camden Lock Market.

The teams are being supervised by a group of staff and students from UCL
who volunteered their time over 3 Saturdays to teach the teams taking part
everything from basic business management to food hygiene in a series of
workshops in the weeks preceding the day itself. Young people in Bedford and Dublin also took part in the initiative, making it truly international.

Each team ran their stall as
closely to that of a small business as possible. They were provided with seed funding
from UCL, from which they had to buy fruit and consumable for the day and after
frenzied selling on Citrus Saturday itself, the participants are allowed to
keep their profits.

The initiative is the brainchild of Timothy Barnes – the Director of UCL
Advances – after he travelled to a business conference in the US and hearing of
a similar approach being pioneered there to encourage young people to aspire to
set up their own businesses. The programme is currently joint-funded by UCL and
an EU Interreg 4b grant for northwest Europe.

Citrus Saturday seeks to emulate that approach through a fun, absorbing
and – most importantly for the teenagers taking part – financially rewarding
day of setting up a lemonade stand. The initiative – which is in its
third year and which saw events take place in Edinburgh, Dublin and Somerset as
it went nationwide, and across the Irish Sea, last year – is now expanding
worldwide.

Already this year, events have been confirmed in Macau, Belgium
and Mozambique, with further events in the planning stages for Germany and
France.

Commenting on the success of this
year’s event in London, Jack Wratten, Citrus Saturday Manager, said:

“Ensuring Citrus Saturday is
financially rewarding is the key to the whole concept of the event.

“The students quickly become
invested in running the business successfully on the day and making as many
sales as possible – and they become hugely enthusiastic about the process of
running a business when they experience first-hand how enjoyable it can
be.”